It’s a case of once I won’t even mention it, twice I’ll snark to my friends, and three times and I’ll risk starting an argument.

I’m talking about my mother and television.

There are very few shows I’m so wedded to watching that I won’t answer the phone if it rings while they’re on. In fact, I’m not sure there’s one. Some I’ll hit record on the video before I pick up the phone, then turn off the TV and go and watch the rest of the show later. And I don’t remotely mind that the person has called. Not everyone watches what I watch, not everyone cares.

But then someone does what my mother has increasing started doing. Which is to call, talk for several minutes, usually just generally catching up, and then ask:

“So, are you watching [insert show name here]?”
“Yes, I am.” Slightly terse tone, but I have resisted saying “I was.”
“So am I.”

Really? You are? Then why are you calling me in the middle of it to talk aimlessly?

As I said, the first couple of times that happened I moved on without even starting an argument. Without getting the full-on “tone”.

Until tonight. Tonight in Aus was the final of Friends. Yes, it’s only Friends, no it’s not as good as it used to be, yes they’ve dragged out showing the ending for so long it’s ridiculous, yes, it originally aired in the rest of the world so long ago you’d have to be in a coma not to know how it ends. But I still wanted to watch it.

Now Channel 9, in its infinite wisdom, elected to show a half-hour clip show hosted by some annoying local station representative before the actual show, in the time slot that the actual show has occupied for the last 9 years. (Trivia: In one of its more moronic decisions Channel 7 bought the first series of Friends back in 1994 and didn’t think it would work, so it didn’t pick up the second series.)

About four minutes into to the pre-show “special”, right after it became clear that the actual show wouldn’t start for some time, my phone rang. It was Betty, who opened with “Hi, this is your mother calling in the middle of Friends.”

About four minutes before the end of the pre-social “special” the phone rang again. This time it was my mother. Now, in her defence she did call to tell me that Christmas Eve dinner has been booked at a Japanese restaurant about fifteen minutes from my apartment, which is a huge improvement on last year.

But about three minutes into our conversation - I was watching the TV with the sound muted and could see that the “special” was still going but winding up with multiple shots of the cast hugging - she asked the question: “So, are you watching Friends?”

I could no longer resist.

“I will be. It hasn’t started yet, if it had I wouldn’t have answered the phone.”
“I’m watching it now.”
“No, you’re watching the crappy pre-show.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have answered the phone. You can’t say you’re watching something and then call me in the middle.”
”Okay. I think it’s starting now.”
“Yes, so I’m going to go now.”
“So am I, I’m going to watch the show.”
“Okay, Talk to you later.”
“Have a good week.”

And, as a side note, even though it was totally and completely predictable in every respect, I was still much more moved by the ending of Friends than I was by the somewhat hollow ending to Sex and the City which Channel 9 finally showed here last week. Maybe it was because they all actually liked each other?